


Night Fishing at the Seine

by furius



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Charles You Slut, First Time, Hidden crossover, M/M, Pre-Canon, Tam-Lin AU, compulsive liars, history for the use of fanfics, most people are not nice, obstruction of justice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-28
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-25 01:19:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furius/pseuds/furius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tam-Lin AU.</p><p>A year and a half before XMFC, Charles meets Erik in Paris.</p><p>Historical note at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

For almost a month, Charles sat in the various cafes in Saint-Germaine-des-Pres waiting for the enlightenment Raven promised him that inevitably arrived for American expatriates. But other than cultivating a fussy palate for breakfast breads thus adding his already considerable number of bad habits, Charles’ unfinished thesis languished while he spent his afternoons drinking terrible milky coffee and feeling the discontent of the city feeding into his own.

Every morning he set out with his notebook and pencil determined to make some headway, but found himself scribbling only a line or a paragraph before the servers brought out the wine list for lunch. The excited background English chatter of what could be an incipient new literary movement was like a pall, or a drug; his mind moved away from the mysteries of histones, the rumors of works on DNA replication in American and English universities to ponder precepts and disintegration of the abstract. By the time they dispersed, the weather would be beautiful and the gardens of Luxemboug Palace, only a short walk away, would be too difficult to resist.

His French was passable when he had arrived and becoming better. It was Spring. The war had only been over a few years. Construction still littered landscape. Paris was looking for a a distraction. Charles’ face was fresh as a schoolboy’s with a smile as knowing as any French gallant. He had ink stains on his shirtcuffs and a very English way of dress. When he gestured to emphasis a point, his eyes were more brilliant than the Breguet on his wrist.

By the time he returned to his hotel with lipstick stains on his collar and promises of a dozen more, even the concierge would be swaying on his feet. Then, at his desk, careful to place the wine glass away from his elbow, while tearing absently at baguette and cheese the bakery delivered to his suite every day, Charles would bring out the pages of data again and stare at the tables and figures and wonder if for all the vaunted objectivity and deductive logic of science, perhaps his work were subjective as any fiction, that his own circumstance had induced him to force an interpretation that wasn’t the truth except what he wished it to be

Growing frustrated, the numbers blurring on the page, he would put everything away and instead read the latest output published by the Olympia Press he overheard someone recommended early in that morning while piles of mail--- stamped Oxford and Westchester, New York-- remained unopened on the mantelpiece.

Occasionally Raven wrote to him; she wanted to go to college and it was rising eyebrows back home.The compromise had been a grand walking tour across Europe and the watering holes of Sharon Xavier’s _set_ , well-chaperoned by well-intentioned mothers from Westchester and their daughters. Never one for words, despite the array of stamps on the envelope, her letters were short, and were growing shorter, belying a fraying temper. “Our English cousin is an aberration. I’m coming up to Oxford,” her last letter read, “you better be there.” Below, she sketched a blue-faced girl with a hand to her temple before signing her name.

Charles planned to be. If only he could get his damned thesis finished. If he dared. If the potential of humanity and the implications of mutation, that narrative of science he planned to write that posited a reality beyond the known laws of biology and physics, were indeed part of the traditions of Mendel, Darwin, and Weinberg, rather than merely the feverish imaginations of one Charles Xavier BA(hon)., MPhil, itinerant graduate student.

But as the bells of the Notre Dame struck three in the morning, if Charles brought his hand to his temple (he didn’t even need to close his eyes) he could see every dream and thought in Paris. And not so far away, Raven was his blue-skinned sister thinking of him.

-=-=

“I saw you in France,” Charles told Erik a year and a half later. They were in the middle of a chess game. Earlier in the evening, Charles had seen Erik taken down a copy of Camus from the shelves. It was still there on the sofa, the page carefully bookmarked.

He did not expect Erik’s smile, a pleasant rarity, to falter and disappear.

“When?” Erik asked. “Have you been following me?” He was trying to keep his tone light, but his shoulders were tense.

Charles lifted his knight from the board. “Before the demonstration,” he answered. “I recognized your mind. I crossed the channel the week before.”

“I stayed,” Erik said quietly, apparently mesmerized by the board and the slow slide of the knight across it. Charles was wary of the bishop on E4. “I am a Jew,” he said deliberately, “but to Papon, perhaps we were all the same. We are not human.”

It was clear he didn’t wish to talk about it, so Charles didn’t. Erik was a guest. Erik was a friend. Erik was- Very early in his life, there were terrifying silences beyond language Charles had learned to respect.

Charles told the truth; he had seen Erik; but he also lied, though not on purpose. He _had_ followed Erik. At first unconsciously. Paris was like any other large and overpopulated city, filled with mundane and extraordinary thoughts. And, Charles, whose confidence and sense of self-preservation were unequally balanced while his mind was eager for distractions, tended to seek out the brightest to follow.

And Erik’s mind had always been _incandescent_.

-=-=

Either because or in spite of the lack of parental guidance, Charles and Raven had cultivated some very bad habits while growing up. Small things like throwing their clothes on the floor and expecting it to be tidy next morning, knowing how to drive a car but not to change tires, preferring coffee to tea but no idea how to actually make either properly (though they had elevated hot chocolate to art). Then, larger things-- though it has less to do with their upbringing than them just being _them_ \-- wandering in strange places without a map.

After all, Charles could read thoughts. Being lost was inconceivable, which was precisely how he found himself in a dodgy part of the city knowing every route that led to a _worse_ part of the city but no idea how to get back to his hotel.

He was, admittedly, a little drunk, which was the difficulty, as it narrowed his telepathic range considerably.

Charles was not lost. He just had to find someone with a destination closer to his, and who didn’t mind his accent and whose thoughts were not covetous of his watch and wallet.

There was such a mind, flaring in the darkness. The man who owned such a mind was leaning perilously close to the edge of the water.

He turned around very quickly when Charles reached out and touched him lightly on his back. Charles, had he been concentrating on facial expression rather than streams of consciousness, would’ve stepped backwards and ran. With the water casting flickering shadows, the menace of the stark angles of the stranger’s face was pronounced.

As it was: “My apologies,” Charles said, blithely, even happily, “I’m very truly, sincerely sorry for startling you.” And he concentrated on the knowledge of the perfect map of Paris the man possessed in his head instead of the eyes and the exposed slice of teeth that gleamed in the darkness like some nocturnal predator. Paris, Marseille, Nice- the man was a savant. Buoyed on alcohol and what seemed a fortuitous meeting, Charles smiled.

"You caught me off guard," the man said slowly in English, though he thought in German and was translating in his head. Charles’ German was limited to biological jargon, but the idiom came out more polite than the emotion he was broadcasting.

Why are you on guard, Charles wanted to ask, sobered, but looking at the tense angry lines in front of him, he opted for discretion. “I appear to be lost,” he confessed, bringing a hand up to his temple, regretfully ready to erase this whole encounter. Then a car had passed on the opposite side of the road, the headlights revealing the stranger’s face and Charles saw that the ascetic planes of the stranger’s face had made he seem harsher than he was. He was not angry, he was merely sad. The aborted movement of his hand end with him reaching out.

“Charles Xavier,” he introduced himself, swaying slightly, the other hand hand reaching for the rail and touched something warm and wet on the metal.

“English?” The question distracted him.

“American,” Charles gave him a pointed look and rubbed his hand on his slacks.

The stranger looked him over slowly. His gaze made Charles’ oddly hot. Belatedly, he realised he was still holding the other man’s hand. He left it go slowly, his thumb sliding over the smooth skin.

“You are very far from the Latin Quarters,”

Charles scowled at the reminder of anything to do with any university. “Avoiding it, in fact.”

“Playing truant?” The ghost of a smile curled around stranger’s lips. Charles’ had the sudden distracting desire to see him truly smile.

Still, that hit a little close to home. “Holiday,” Charles excused himself. “I need directions back to my hotel, if you can help a lost soul.” A pinched, inward wince, hardly detectable except Charles was looking for it. The tremor in the man’s mind had startled him. “Who do I have to thank?”

“I haven’t said I will or even can help you yet,” the stranger said, “but you may call me Max.”

Maximilian Eisenhardt. It was a curious jumble of syllables- French and German. The war couldn’t have been kind to him. He was too young to be a veteran. Alsatian, perhaps. And for all the defensiveness, Max hadn’t left, which was oddly gratifying and which Charles immediately pointed out. The glow of the city seemed very faint compared to the bright mind in front of him. In fact, it was so bright that Charles had trouble discerning the details other than that what Max wanted, at least, had nothing to do with Charles. Charles, for some reason, felt a little insulted.

Max did lead him back to his hotel, through alleyways that Charles didn’t know could exist in Napoleon III’s meticulous plans for Paris. It was not a path that Charles would’ve used from what he knew from Max’s mind and a few times, he was tempted to go on his own. But always, curiosity and the curious sense of comfort in Max’s presence made him go on.

They emerged from one almost unlit back street to the familiar baroque facade of Charles’ hotel. It was nearly dawn. The smell of fresh bread was wafting on the streets.

The street lamps were still on. Standing directly beneath it, Charles tried not to notice how thin Max was and how reluctant he was to leave him. “Allow me to buy you breakfast? A token of my thanks.”

Max spared a glance at the pinking horizon.

“I know a nice little cafe,” Charles continued. “It’s only a little walk away. They have the most delicious croissants and hot chocolate, you, my friend, look like you haven’t had hot chocolate in an age, not a proper one, at any rate.”

“And you’d know.” Despite the visible indecision, it didn’t seem a question.

“You would find,” Charles said, “that I’m a pursuer of frivolous knowledge, for now.”

“Now is a good time,” Max said.

Charles gave him his most charming smile.

-=-=


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to add, this is a Tam-Lin AU without mpreg, sorry to disappoint...

At around six o’clock in the morning, the shortening shadows revealed Max leaning against a wall, a cigarette dangling from his lips while Charles leaned in and offered him a flame. The cafe, it turned out, wouldn’t be open for another 15 minutes.

Charles proposed a stroll. Max shrugged and didn’t respond, which was the point when Charles realized that the fatigue he was feeling wasn’t completely his own. He would’ve preferred for them to sit down at the tables already on the sidewalk but Max had declined and Charles didn’t want to press.

The best and worst thing about staying up through the night while partially inebriated was that the hangover was delayed. Instead, it would just be just a gentle tapping headache that became more insistent throughout the day. It made moments of clarity precious. The sunrise was lovely, Charles had seen it at least a dozen times, but it set Max features into a chiaroscuro painting except that the smoke that trailed from his fingertips that appeared and disappeared with each exhale.

Max was handsome. He could be charming, Charles thought. He wasn’t, however; he was serious and reserved with a strangeness that was more than the brilliant obscurity of his mind. His eyes were slate green. It reminded Charles, oddly, of the metal struts of the Eiffel.

“You are staring,” Max stated, mild enough. “Is there something on my face?”

“There’s nothing else to look at,” Charles said before he realised what he was saying. He blushed, heat rushing to his face, and stepped hastily away.

Max seemed unsurprised. He tapped his cigarette against the wall. “It seems rather late in the acquaintance to judge.”

“What?” Confused for a moment, Charles looked at Max again and took in his well-cut, if shabby clothes under the new light. “I don’t judge, not without evidence at least. Had that drilled into me at university.” And even if it wasn’t, Charles doubted that he _could_. The inner court of human hearts was something hidden from his understanding, if not knowledge. His own seemed to be absent, for better or worse. He suspected it was the reason for his current predicament- that is, in Paris thinking of the goodness of chance instead of his apartment in Oxford -- and was glad for it.

Max merely lifted one eloquent eyebrow while his cheek hollowed as he drew another inhale from his cigarette.

“I’m studying genetics at Oxford,” Charles explained. “We can’t draw conclusions without evidence and even hypothesis has to be based on what is known. That is the great secret of it all, what Einstein tried to explain but never filtered to the public- we progress from the known to the unknown and not the other way. Facts emerge in the process, but they’re really incidental on the grand path-” he faltered. He _did_ tend to carry on unless someone stopped him, but Max didn’t interrupt. “The truth,” Charles finished quietly, thinking suddenly of his thesis.

“I see,” the other man said evenly. His eyes drifted past Charles. “It seems your cafe’s finally open.”

Charles went and greeted the waiter, who looked at Max strangely but led them to Charles’ customary table. Laying the napkin on his lap, Charles noticed that his left hand seemed to be covered in some sort of brown crust. He made a disgusted noise.

“You should probably wash your hand before we eat,” Max commented.

“Order whatever you like. Everything’s good here,” Charles told him and went to seek tiny sink and toilet inside. The water sluicing his hand turned reddish as he scrubbed and Charles saw a glimpse of himself on the tiny mirror. He looked better than he felt, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright. Beneath his hat, his hair was squashed. Dampening his handkerchief with the cold water, he closed his eyes and rest it against his eyelids for a moment. The sound of cutlery and plates filtering through the door and the groaning of pipes in the walls seemed peaceful. And against the quiet, there was Max’s mind, as peaceful as a sea becalmed.

 

When he went out again, Max was as he left him, but the waiter was unhappy and for some reason, suspicious.

“Good morning, Mr. Xavier. Your _friend_ is ordering everything,” he said, accusatory.

Charles covered his initial surprise and frowned. “You know I’m good for it.”

“Of course,” the waiter said immediately, his attitude changing to only wariness. He turned his back to Max, defining him in a jumble unflattering phrases that Charles couldn’t make out clearly. “Will you be staying for lunch today? The new red from the provinces has just arrived.”

“Depends,” said Charles curtly. “Tea and hot chocolate and whatever else he likes first.”

-=-=

Charles himself was hungry but Max seemed ravenous. After a while, Charles settled for watching him inhaling the rest of the spread while he nursed his third cup of hot chocolate and thought absently about his thesis. It was not a new experience. Charles had met many hungry men with good conversations in Paris except with Max, Charles had the disconcerting feeling that good conversation wasn’t the currently he dealt in and was half afraid that Max would leave right afterwards.

Of course, he didn’t _owe_ Charles anything. Strictly speaking, the breakfast was poor thanks. Nonetheless, Charles was contemplating whether an invitation to a light lunch might be welcomed when Max suddenly spoke.

“Why are you taking a holiday?”

Charles shrugged. “Why does anyone take a holiday? Rest, recreation.”

“It implies you’ve worked very hard, but you said you haven’t finished.” There was, Charles amused to know, no judgement in that either, just resignation.

“Perhaps I’m waiting,” Charles said. Never mind good conversation and fortuitous meetings or even brilliant minds, Max might as well be his academic conscience, a more attractive envelope sent by his supervisors to plague him.

“Waiting for what?”

“Inspiration,” Charles replied, watching the long fingers drawing out another cigarette.

“You said you’re a scientist. Are there inspired scientific truths?” So he had been listening. It was heartening. “Truths that could spark an ideological fervour in others- is that what you are searching for?” There was a sharpness in his words, an edge on his thoughts that snagged on Charles own.

“No,” he answered carefully. “Inspired scientific truths create possibilities. Knowledge can give us technology, and innovations that betterment of humanity. They offer us more choices, more informed choices, and so, freedom to choose better for humanity,”

Max was shaking his head. “You are American despite your accent-” he gestured at Charles, the smoke trailing around his hand, “and Oxford, thinking you can always choose. And you are an optimist, thinking men will choose better for others if given the choice. You haven’t lived the war.”

But Charles had, if not himself. Worse still, he had seen both the minds of the survivors and those who had condemned their survival. “Oh. what what does Maximilian choose? What is he?”

“My name,” Max said slowly, as if Charles was simple, “is Max, not Maximilian.”

“I thought you were Alsatian,” Charles blurted out, belatedly remembering that Max never told him his last name either so it seemed even more presumptuous.

“What gave you that impression?”

“You don’t like the Germans.” Even to himself, it sounded stupid.

“Despite my knowledge of Paris back streets?” Max shook his head, as if amused by Charles’ antics. “There are other people in Paris who don’t like Germans. Other people in France, even.”

“It is an intense personal dislike, appropriation of identity-” Charles shut up.

“Yes,” Max, dangerously quiet.

Max was a Jew, Charles realized, and had a bizarre urge to apologise. For what, he wasn’t exactly sure. He had Jewish classmates at university and perhaps earlier as well, of course, but they were American or English and even after the War it never had seemed to matter -for him, at any rate, though he’s had unpleasant conversations where it did. The dinner tables of New York society even the High Table at Oxford weren’t without its traditional prejudices and the newly mangled social Darwinism. Max, with his light eyes, auburn-tinted hair, almost reddish in the sun, didn’t resemble any Jews Charles knew. Even his name, Eisenhardt, seemed to Charles very German. Perhaps he had passed.

The silence was stretching to the point of becoming awkward, soon it will be inappropriate

“I assumed,” Charles resumed, uncharacteristically stilted because he’s never had to speak so directly about something he understood so little, “I apologise.” Then, all in a rush, “but I’m glad you are here because I don’t think I can stand it for it to be otherwise.” He wet his suddenly dry lips, a bit nervously. Max, his sea-green eyes almost mesmerizing, was staring at him. Charles continued, “And I’m glad that you shared something so important with me.”

The silence stretched on. Charles braced himself. He would have his wine and his thesis waiting for him. In fact, there was a multitude of rendez-vous he could choose to meet. No one like this man in front of him, no one he could and had offended so easily.

“Will you call me Erik?” Max finally said.

“Anything,” Charles said quickly. Then, puzzled, “Why?”

“It is my name. Erik Lehnsherr.” It cost him something to say it. The truth was in the cost. Charles wondered what.

“I’m still Charles Xavier,” Charles said. “It doesn’t change anything. A rose by any other name smells as sweet,” he added mischievously. Erik blinked at him. “But I’ll remember this name better and forget the other if you like,” Charles assured him. It did change things, irrevocably. Erik was a man whom even cafe waiters didn’t like and secretive of his own name. He had a past Charles couldn’t discern at a glance, but he listened. And under the broad daylight, Charles looked him, took in the the shape of his eyes, the slope of his cheekbones, and the angles of his jaw and felt something inside him break a little. Erik was was...unexpected.

Erik was unexpected. Charles wanted, quite desperately, to expect him. A line- _I pondered long enough On whence he came and who he was_ came to mind. The allusion was inappropriate and only partially explained Charles fascination.

“Perhaps,” Erik answered uneasily.

“Come to dinner. I usually dine alone.”

Erik’s mouth quirked into a smile. It was lovely. “I’ve been in Paris longer than you, Charles. I don’t believe it.”

“I dine alone unless I have company,” Charles amended.

“I shall not deprive you of your company,” Erik said, which wasn’t what Charles wanted to hear. “Perhaps breakfast again,” Erik continued, eyeing the waiter hovering two tables away “Now that the waiter’s grown used to me, though I think it’s overpayment for service rendered.”

“I could’ve been mugged or dead,” Charles pointed out. “I put quite the value to my life. My thesis might never be finished.” He would’ve been neither, though the last was true. For the first time in a while, Charles felt an _urgency_ , a press of time.

“Till later then, Charles,” Erik said, and to Charles surprise, bent down and kissed him once, very lightly, on the cheek. “Tell me of your hopes tomorrow,” before disappearing into the crowd.

It took considerably longer till he was beyond the range of Charles’ awareness.

-=-=

To his surprise, Charles went back to his apartment and worked. Rather, he slept until noon, went to lunch, then went back to his room and resumed writing. It flowed more easily now that a deadline seemed to have regained its importance. There was another letter from Raven. She was in Sussex, bored out of her mind. “It’s very sad here, or very happy. It is difficult to tell. Everyone I’ve met is pretending nothing has changed and discussing the latest London fashions while there are men with missing limbs in the village. It’s very difficult to maneuver with one leg. Even getting to bed takes an effort (I tried). The women here don’t like my American accent and thinks I’m going to London to get a title. I told them I like my own name well enough and they can have my dresses if they like. After all, it’s not as if I _need_ them to look dressed.”

By any other, it would’ve seemed like vanity. But this is Raven. Charles wrote back, rather alarmed: “Don’t. Remember what happened during the winter when you were eleven and thinking you don’t need a coat.” He was dialing up for someone to mail the letter when there was a knock on the door.

“I apologise, Mr. Xavier, but these gentlemen insisted.” The bellboy was apologetic, Charles gave him a note and the letter and sent him away before dealing with- ah, Parisian police.

“Mr. Xavier,” the non-uniformed one said in uneasy English, though it didn’t quite dull the authority in his voice. He looked surprised at seeing Charles, at his youth, in particular. ”I am Inspector Ganimard, apologies for interrupting but I’m reliably informed your life may be in danger.”

“Danger?”

“We saw you with a man calling himself Magnus or Max.” Charles’ heart skipped and half heard the rest of the conversation. His French may be well enough for flirting and reading the odd novel, but Ganimard was launching into a rather convoluted French legalese at the end of which Charles gathered that he was to be escorted to the police station for his own protection and, it didn’t take French to read his thoughts, for questioning. Does he have all his travel documents?

“This is ridiculous,” Charles told them. “It was early in the morning. There was no one else. He joined me for breakfast.”

“You’ve never seen him before last night then?” the Inspector asked. “The waiter said you called him a friend and paid the bill.”

“Never and it was morning,” Charles answered and thought, more was the pity. “He shared a bite with me and I could pay, what of it?” The policemen accompanying the inspector snickered; the inspector had been chasing hopeless leads for a week and now was chasing after young men sharing cigarettes. Charles ignored them. He wanted them to go away, but not before he learnt what this was all about.

“Why am I in danger?” he asked. “I’ve a right to know that at least.”

“No one,” Inspector Ganimard intoned, “ever seen with Magnus or Max was seen a second time. Have you see today’s paper?”

Charles shook his head. Ganimard handed him a copy. The black and white headline was quite clear- the body of a minister, found floating in the Seine, apparently having swallowed and pierced by his own glasses after being shot and stabbed viciously sometime early in the morning. The photos were not part of the paper, but were handed to him by Ganimard.

“This man,” Ganimard continued, “was seen with Max before his chauffeur and daughter reported him missing. “The police chief has taken a personal interest in the matter.”

“And you are sure it is..this Max?” Charles asked.

“You see, there’s a photo.” And there was one, Max, rather, Erik, sitting very close to the minister. They were laughing, pressed shoulder to shoulder at a crowded party. There was a second one, the minister’s mouth against Erik’s ear, his hand on his shoulder and the exposed skin of his neck, whispering something. There was something disturbingly voyeuristic about those photos.

Charles became aware that Ganimard was looking at him closely. Too closely, in fact. Charles wasn’t the shape-shifter in the family.

“Leave and forget,” Charles said in English, closed the door, and promptly vomited into the wastepaper basket. He was still holding the photos and he couldn’t forget.

-=-=

Charles's internal clock was a mess. He couldn’t sleep. His body made it easier for his mind to decide that another very early breakfast was a good idea.

“Are you all right, Charles? Should I leave?” Erik was there. Charles wasn’t sure if he was relieved or..something else. He was in yesterday’s clothes, he noted absently, and he was still thin, his eyes were still green. The presence of his mind in Charles’ hadn’t changed in essence.

“You’ve a lot to answer for, Erik,” Charles said and saw Erik tense. “Not to me,” Charles continued. “Inspector Ganimard and some policemen came to visit me this afternoon. Rather, yesterday afternoon.” He ran a hand through his hair. Erik was right. He didn’t dine alone, but he might as well have dined with plates and saucers for what attention he paid to his companions. It was terrible of him, particularly when he realised that his early absence from the cafe meant people had missed him.

“What did they want to know?”

“Whether I knew who you were. I think,” Charles said, “mostly they want to know if I’m your accomplice.”

“In what?”

“Anything you do, I suppose,” Charles said. He waited until their orders arrived before laying the photos on the table. “You never told me.”

“I told you my name,” Erik said. “Where did you get them?”

“The inspector, he probably has copies, but I’m not in the habit of keep other people’s photos.”

“We have to leave.” Erik stood abruptly.

“Do sit, Erik,” Charles said tiredly. Erik sat. “They’re not following me. It’s not that waiter’s shift today. You know, I still don’t know why he didn’t like you yesterday.”

“He’s seen me before,” Erik said. “I-” he hesitated. He stared at the photos, though he had turned them over once he saw what they were. “I slept with him.” It could’ve been a more elegant phrase, or a rougher one, than Erik truly intended, but there was no image and no emotion connected with the words.

Charles nearly dropped his cup. As it was, the hot liquid spilled and burned his hand. “The waiter?”

Erik shook his head. “No, the other one and so did he.”

Charles twitched. _What kind of company have you been keeping?_ he heard in his head, but it was his mother’s voice. “What do I care? This is France. It’s not illegal.” The words sounded hollow to his ears.

“You don’t even care if I’m accused of murder.”

“Accused,” Charles said. “I don’t know the circumstances unless you tell me and you don’t owe me answers even if I ask. I like your company, I like the feel of your mind.”

Eric looked like he was mad, then his expression softened. “You are not very objective, for a scientist. You draw strange conclusions.”

“Well, you’re not an experiment,” Charles said, exasperated. With himself or with Erik, he wasn’t sure.

“Do you want me to go back to your room with you?”

“Should I?” Charles asked him. The frisson of sheer _want_ that ran through him was disturbing. He couldn’t and shouldn’t, surely. “Usually I settle for a turn around a nice garden, a light picnic, then perhaps some dancing afterwards.”

“Usually,” Erik repeated, his gaze hot. “Why settle?”

“Exactly.” Charles thought of the homo neanderthalis in their mountain homes, never imagining what lay across the sea. “Have you ever taken a turn around a nice garden?”

-=-=


	3. Chapter 3

After breakfast, at Charles’ insistence, they made their way past Place Saint-Supice, down Rue de Seine and Bonaparte to the gardens. Erik made sarcastic remarks about European royalty. Charles let the words wash over him; the nearness of the other man’s body, the unnecessary puffs of his breath against his ear were more vivid than evidence of the imagination of the dead. He tantalized himself with each moment Erik spent by his side, holding the invitation at arm’s length, examining it, indulging in his own uncertainty.

They had the picnic: delicately seared foie gras on spiced bread, a variety of cheeses, olives, and a box of chocolate pastries accompanied with champagne and strawberries. The lunch stretched to afternoon. The wine dwindled, Erik’s remarks fell to nothing and his eyes grew watchful.

“Are you unsure or is this a very flattering and extended no?” he asked bluntly, disturbed. “You can’t take me dancing,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Charles said, sleepy with food and wine, glancing sidelong at Erik. “We can put you in a dress. Or me, if you rather not.” It wouldn’t be too different from a pantomime, except thoughts of dancing dresses, glittering and low slung and teasingly _bare_ was swirling together with Erik’s brightness in his mind, the metaphorical threads he was untangling slipped into detailed visions of pale skin and running a hand through Erik’s hair, a strand of which was falling across his forehead.

“If you like, I know a place we can go,” Erik said stiffly beside him.

Charles inhaled sharply, struck by the unexpected temptation, then shook his head. “I was assured that my life would be in danger, not yours.” Charles sat up; the idea of blackmail was wrong because it was completely unnecessary. “I said I liked your companionship. It means I’m afraid you don’t. So you see-” And then he knew his own mind, divorced from the multiude. Charles didn’t want to be merely words, but how should he say it? It should bother him, that Erik admitted to sleeping with dead ministers fished from the Seine and offered to sleep with Charles almost the moment he admitted lying to the authorities for him, quite without reason as far as Erik knew, but it didn’t. It mattered he was here, that was all.

What bothered Charles, what he couldn’t figure out _why_ he wished to hold Erik very close. There was a part of him that wanted to devour him until he was wholly his, constant and everlasting. There would be no need, no burning desire to solve any of Erik’s mysteries because they would share them, as natural as breathing, and Charles would tell of his telepathy. The end of Odysseys- stories of they’ve gone and how they’ve survived.

“Kiss me.” The words surprised himself. It had, after all, came out without deliberation.

“Here?” Erik asked, sounding more certain than he had a moment ago. Of course- Charles thought wryly, it would not be a surprise to _him_ but Erik’s lips were hovering a breath away and the question was half a request...

Charles closed his eyes. He, in fact, half-heartedly wished that the very thought of what they could do together was not making him bite his lip in anticipation. He was becoming aware, terribly suddenly, the erotic possibilities of the lean body beside him, the lengths of those legs- Something more than pleasure, a sin beyond the bound of thoughts. Tangible. He could open his eyes, reach out and _unclothe_ him.

Charles swallowed, his throat dry. The roses lost their brilliance. Even the warmth of the sun on his back was insipid. “Come back with me,” he paused, lingering on the awful strangeness in Erik’s gaze, almost giving in by letting the sentence end, “if you want to.”

-=-=

The adolescent shames of the type of muscular Christianity from Charles’ schooldays and the private crimes he had known from Oxford had nothing in comparison to the excitement of doing something, finding something, so illicit and necessary as not being the man he was only a few days ago.

Charles stared, transfixed, as if he had never seen nakedness, at the glimpses of skin revealed with each button beneath his hand.

How you’ve _succumbed_ , Charles thought, so _late_ in life for an awakening to a desire and pleasure you had relegated, so unceremoniously and dismissively, to _others_ , and now, finally, utterly, _yours_ (as well).

Erik was beautiful, unholy so in the room with drawn curtains and dimmed light; his skin, pale to almost translucency where it was untouched by sun, could _blush_ from throat down sternum and possibly beyond. Impatient, Charles let his fingers tear the rest of the shirt -- buttons scattered -- and met Erik’s rough mouth with his own to stifle a protest.

He tasted like sunshine, the strong scent of him layered beneath the bittersweet notes of wine. Very good wine, Charles recognized, he bought it. Whispers of stubble rubbed against his face, but wetness and warmth and the movement of slick muscle and the indelicate edges of teeth had always been arousing; even the hardness against his thigh seemed matter of course. His breath hitched as a hand palmed his erection.

“You have done this before, haven’t you?” Erik, satisfyingly breathless, the other hand anchored around Charles’ back. He could feel the span and reach of them across his shoulder-blades.

“No one like you,” Charles said, truthfully enough. What were smooth skin, juts of bone concealed, even if artfully, beneath rounded flesh in comparison to a body as spare as a Praxitelean Hermes and as warm as hellfire. He ran his hand down the strain of intercostal muscles, settling on the impossibly neatly waist, dipping his thumb briefly beneath the waistband. It would be hotter down...and inside. Fire licked up his spine. Charles groaned aloud as all his blood rushed south.

“And don’t I deserve a bed?”

Erik was _unnatural_. Deserve? Dazed, Charles laughed, his other hand pressing hard against the arch of Erik’s back, bringing their hips flush, and groaned again. Their belts seemed to have already undid themselves by the time they untucked, in an instant, a bed that had been angles and corners.

Charles crowded Erik into the middle of the ruin, pressing onwards and forwards, daring himself. Seconds stretched as they moved against each other.

“All the things I could do to you-” he murmured, sitting back with an effort, following the long muscle from knee to thigh with his hand. The flat planes of a broad chest, the dip of a hard stomach... His heart was beating very fast: lifetimes of knowledge in mere facts of what some people do together, now given canvas- what _he_ would do.

Erik’s handsome face turned inscrutable. Slowly, Charles bent forward, pressed their lips together then scraped his teeth lightly down, tasting the salt gathered in the hollow of Erik’s throat, mapping the contours of the splay of muscle, feeling nubs of skin tightening against his tongue. Finally, he nuzzled against the hand half-curled in his hair and let his tongue flicker against the pulsepoint before committing to a broader swipe across the base of a thumb.

He could feel the tremor in the body beneath him as his mouth moved up the forearm, carefully avoiding the string of numbers that almost shocked him to stillness, as if the key to a cipher was presented. “I’m alone in Paris,” he told Erik, thrusting downwards, his mouth near a tendon on Erik’s neck, “time didn’t exist, until you.”

“You’re on holiday, Charles Xavier,” Erik responded, his eyes darkened with lust, his voice low, “You’ve all the time in the world.” Then he moved, his limbs flowing so swiftly that Charles’s breathe caught.

What a holiday, Charles thought, his back on the bed, as the drawer seemed to rattle and open of its own accord. His skin felt tight and hot as he watched Erik reached back and prepare himself, the muscles of his arm standing in relief. A propagating, recursive pleasure was threatening the physical encounter. Charles clenched his hands on Erik’s thighs, focused and the here and now, withdrawing his mind from the other’s just in time so that he could _see_ him, as bare as flesh kneeling in front of him, and not merely the reflection of his own multitudes.

His feet curled into the mattress, holding on. He lifted his hips and Erik bore down and he didn’t recognize his own voice. He felt as if he had already gone over some precipice unawares. He could taste blood where he had bitten through his lip. They were sinking each other, the achingly familiar pleasure of _knowing_ just within reach.

-=-=

In the morning- It must be morning, because Charles was woken up by someone pounding at he door at the same time the sunlight struck into his eyes.

Blast that waiter. He should’ve discredited him to the the first time. Nonetheless-

He pulled on his trousers, picked up a shirt, and opened the door.

“I’m well. I have survived your Paris so far,” Charles said to the inspector.

Ganimard’s English was awful. It grated on his ears. “You’ve not seen Max.” Annoyed, Charles recognized it as a statement.

“I don’t know any Max,” Charles said.

Ganimard set a foot across the threshold. Charles wondered if he could pretend he didn’t see it when he closed the door. “You are a student in genetics at Oxford University. I wonder if you know the effect of radioactivity on the body.”

“Not my specialty,” Charles answered shortly. Ganimard wasn’t convinced, but Charles was intrigued. “I’m sure there are people in Paris better qualified to answer your questions,” he said, and saw that Ganimard _had_ asked them, but didn’t dare to ask for an explanation for what they said. Why not? The matter seemed to be an unexpected stumbling block in the ongoing murder investigation. Good.

“You won’t invite me in.” There was a mirror in the hallway, an antique monstrosity that revealed the state of the living room given the proper angle. Ganimard was making an unsubtle attempt to achieve it.

“I’ve a friend,” Charles replied, careful with the gendered pronoun, and politely nudged Ganimard’s foot away before he shut the door.

When he returned to the bedroom after spending a brief moment to survey the hotel for hints of cold hostility, Erik stirred, awaking slowly and then all at once, alert.

“Who was that?”

“Just the housekeeper,” Charles said, laying a kiss on a scarred shoulder. “Go back to sleep,” he said, and slipped back into the still-warm bed.

But he remained awake, staring Erik’s back. The unevenly surface was stark in sunlight.

How have you survived? Charles wondered idly, what particulating characteristics? what adaptions did you inherit from your parents? what will you pass on? It wasn’t quite the proper Darwinian perspective, positively Lamarkian, in fact, but Charles always thought the man perhaps unfairly dismissed. There must be _something_ that explained and perhaps regulated the heterogeneity within single species, that allowed circumstances to change and shape people and pass on those traits to their offspring...No man existed in vacuum.

He yawned and leaned his forehead against the warm back.

“What time is it?” Erik was, for some reason, sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the bed.

He had fallen asleep. Charles twisted to look at the clock. “Two.”

Erik cursed and stood. A piece of paper fluttered down toward the floor and a pen rolled out of bed.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, all admirable form and dauntless mind.

“I need to work,” Charles said, stretching, sheet pooling at his hip, gathering Erik’s attention. “Come back for dinner,” he invited.

And Erik did.

-=-=

For two weeks, Erik disappeared around noon and reappeared in the evenings.

He was perhaps lying low.

Room and board and sex, Charles was a little forlorn sometimes, what was not to like? Another secret shared in the making. He knew others with worse arrangements and less amiable partners with more mercenary reasons. It was a little unfair. Erik left sketches of Charles in the bedroom. It was a little startling finding them at first: Charles in repose, Charles reading. Except, somehow, the lines of his face which he always thought a little more boyish than proper, had a sort of edge,a certain pleasing hardness to it. Is this how he sees me? Or is this merely how he sees the world?

Charles, perturbed by the melancholy path of the thought, the tinge of what could be loneliness except it didn’t seem reasonable when he could step out, metaphorically or literally, and be flattered and charmed instead of waiting-

He was undoubtedly waiting now. Discontent had found a target so he was working on his thesis again, reluctant to be distracted until Erik’s return.

Then one day Erik didn’t come back. By then Charles was nose deep in his writing and thought nothing of it. Erik’s presence flickered in and out of notice in the day, as if a tide was bearing him further away. It was as if there was part of him that already knew he would disappear. One of the multitudes of him knew and didn’t care- what was one body compared to another? one mind, no matter how bright, against all he knew?

His heart clenched at the thought, but the _reality_...The _truth and reality_ of the situation was-

Charles sighed and thought of the persistence of certain traits in populations. It was easier than thinking about variability of individuals.

-=-=


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which Charles Xavier plays detective and discovers being a telepath doesn’t necessarily make clues easier to interpret...

After upturning the couch cushions and leaving them strewn all over the living room, Charles finally looked under the bed with a torch. The missing lab notebook containing the relevant post-it note was lying beneath last week’s newspapers among the scattered debris of perfumed paper, a dried fountain pen with a cracked nib, some pencil stubs, blank moleskin notebooks, and a paper napkin, unused except for where the ink had bled through. When he brought it out into the light, the words caught his eyes- in small copperplate capitals, a schoolboy’s hand inscribing: “Charles, ~~I will be back around~~.

Charles had never seen Erik’s handwriting. There were moments etched into his memory when he woke or glanced up from his reading to see Erik sitting across from him, his mouth pressed into a strange angry line while the long fine-boned hand moved accompanied by the harsh whisper of pencil across Charles’ best graphing paper.

Erik, with none of the embarrassment or self-depreciation of other ambitious doodlers Charles had known in Paris, handed over the drawings easily. And Charles, for all his devotion to modern science, nonetheless had always inhabited a room with curtains that matched the furniture, designed before 1900s. Running his fingertips over the lines, he could tell that practised precision and not artistry rendered those portraits. A photo would’ve lasted longer. He had been contemplating getting a camera for Erik before he left.

He never found the occasion. The sketches he had filed away were unsigned but Charles liked to think of the way Erik watched him, catalogued each line and every shade of his face and figure, evidence of the importance of his body’s existence even when they were not touching. He remembered the first time he realised what Erik was doing and the surprising satisfaction of possessing of physical evidence of that he occupied Erik’s thoughts; it had felt like a triumph and breakthrough, as if arriving at a solution that had not been obvious. Ah- another piece of the puzzle of the universe in place fitting into place.

But now Charles was sitting on a bedroom floor, in jeans and t-shirt, cradling a cafe napkin with his name on it like a lovesick girl with her first billet-doux, because Erik was gone and even if the two words conveyed nothing of what should’ve been reams of expected, even hoped for, confessions, Charles himself had more words that needed to be put to paper, ideas that would advance science, advance humanity. Surely, he should concentrating on those instead of what were nothing more than a shuffle of phantom touches and glances pressing on the forefront of his mind.

Charles clung to the idea that it had all been pleasure, merely another indulgence, like a rare wine of a lost vintage sampled and gone, now savored only in memory. It had been a fortnight, the inexplicable immediacy sense of loss of the flushed skin and that sweat slicked flesh sliding across his own did not bear examining.

Charles buried his head his hands. His revelations were his own, not Erik’s. Memories, he knew, worked differently for other people. He had so many that weren’t his own, he was afraid that if he ever forgot anything, he could forget everything else, too, his head echoing with the said and unsaid, ringing-

It took him a moment before he realised the ringing was from the telephone in the living room. He picked it up, a little annoyed.

“Hello, Charles?”

“Raven?” It had been an age since he heard his sister’s voice. Her last letter was from a week ago. She sounded scratchy and faraway.

“Why are you not in Oxford? And why is there a woman’s blouse in your closet?”

The pang of guilt was replaced by outrage. Charles spluttered. “What are you doing there?”

“Waitressing,” she replied, though it didn’t answer why she was rummaging through his closet.

“What?” Charles was sometimes accused of eidetic memory and a certain degree of uncanny prescience-like intuition. It was unjust. He could be surprised, especially by the person who most often made the accusation. “Are you determined to get yourself into trouble?” Pubs around Oxford weren’t too awful, but it was Raven.

“Don’t worry, they all know I’m your sister,” she said, as if that was the problem. “It’s not like they know “Xaviers” other than you around here. I just found a half-slip.” There was a horrifying pause, then, a very odd voice: “She must’ve been small; you two would’ve made tiny babies. Oh look, another- Wow, how many women have been through here. Didn’t realise you’re such a Don Juan.” Charles could hear paper being shuffled and was on the verge of asking Raven not to touch his desk when she started again, this time back to her usual matter-in-fact abruptness, “Your mail’s stacked to overflowing, by the way. You’ve got Ladies and Honourables writing you letters. Wait, I’m looking at one that’s challenging you to a duel. Hmph, father, brother, fiance, or even husband? Charles, how could you?” The last part was a perfect imitation of his mother, if she could care. “Is that why you ran away to France? You know, I can take your place. I do fence and shoot better than you. ”

“How many- Duel-” He couldn’t even recall whether that distaste for archaic solution had indeed been one of the reasons. “Don’t read them. Never mind. Be careful,” he said, mostly because he had nothing else to say. Everything was faraway. His sister. Erik. Even the walls of this Paris apartment didn’t seem to correspond to what reality was. The recursive reflection of himself and that terrible mirror in the hallway was inducing a sudden wave of vertigo.

“I always am,” Raven said lightly. “ This call’s costing you a fortune by the way, and be careful. People are saying Paris is a powder keg waiting for a spark.”

Charles smiled. “I miss you, too, Raven. I’m just wrapping things up here then I’ll be back and never leave you again.”

Raven snorted. “Please no, you’ll fuss me to death,” Raven said. “Now go eat something. You sound maudlin and sentimental and you haven’t asked how I am. Quite well, now that I’ve convinced all our relatives I’m a monster in disguise-”

“Raven-”

His sister laughed. They talked about differences between New York and Paris and Oxford and how terrible that Raven went to a reception at the British Museum and disguised herself as one of the Elgin Marbles, scaring people badly when she blinked.

“Have you done anything terrible lately, beyond the usual?”

She waited, breathing down the phone while Charles recovered from another surprise. Letting a murderer leave me and then feeling sorry for it, Charles thought, but didn’t say it. Even the idea of speaking Erik’s name made his knuckles whiten; the napkin was a crumpled mess. Raven was right. He should eat. They had scarcely bid a fond goodbye before the phone rang again.

“Raven, I thought you said I should-” A female French voice interrupted and requested, in clipped tones, for Mssr. Charles Xavier; Professor d'Hergemont of the Sorbonne was asking him to tea in the afternoon.

Charles knew the name only vaguely, but he could envision his supervisor’s transatlantic phone call. His second first author paper was being published and MIA was usually not recommended for American Oxford doctoral candidates who absconded with the data and had the means to easily endow a lab across the Atlantic or the Channel.

Charles suddenly felt quite apologetic. He confirmed the time and place, dressed, and grabbed a sandwich on the way before navigating his way across to the Latin Quarters and into the sprawling complex of the university corridors when he caught Ganimard’s thoughts: Rather, the flutter of his mind that would soon resolve to the name that snagged Charles’ waking and sleeping consciousness.

_Looked at me like an ape and not a policeman. Never mind that. Likely damaging to organs, but effects can be random. What in the world is transcription? How does Maximoff and minister figure? Curie’s Radiation Institute. 3pm, better hurry. I wonder if that woman’s lost. Beautiful legs. Should I go ask-_

He entered into view a moment later. Charles stepped beside a convenient pillar and lowered his head as Ganimard passed. He looked at his watch, it was almost half-past two..

Torn between keeping his appointment and following the inspector, Charles put his hand to his forehead and attempted to leave d’Hergemont an impression that he had stopped by. Charles was rushed, d’Hergemont’s thoughts on his last meeting leaked into Charles memories. He find himself musing upon facts he had not considered since his last coursework: half-lives, alpha protons, the stability of the phosphate backbone and even the philosophical implications of the philosophical mind as an integration of atomic and physical properties.

Ganimard had not been the most recent person to inquire after radioactivity’s effect on the body. D’Hergemont’s thoughts trailed back to questions that he had been asked and that were far more specific: induced mutations.

Charles hurried. He made a shortcut and was at a cross-street, a bit bewildered. Too early again, perhaps. Or did he miss him? He sometimes still underestimated the difference between other people’s thoughts and intentions and their actions if he didn’t monitor them constantly.

“Mssr. Xavier,” Ganimard nodded at him as he arrived and kept walking.

Charles called out after him. “Inspector, how’s your investigation?” Students were the same everywhere. Curious heads turned, conversations paused, the inspector stopped and retraced his steps, his eyes narrowed in annoyance.

“Ongoing,” he replied.

“You haven’t found him then,” Charles said, easily, falling into step beside Ganimard. “I’m heading toward the radiation institute. Your question got me curious. I thought it might be useful to expand my research horizons.”

Charles whole life was an experiment: what would people do if I don’t tell them what to do? A challenge to himself: could I influence people just by myself? He rather suspected that what others do, except they did not have Charles’ advantage: he had more precise measurements of the results- he could see whether other people’s mind worked as predicted before they committed to action.

Ganimard was calculating: Charles was a student, Englishman, likely a homosexual, but wealthy enough to be comfortable with anything, the rich was a different species-- Charles suppressed a smile-. Perhaps he had kept in touch with Maximoff. After all, he was alive. Ganimard was uncertain whether he should be interrogating or protecting Charles. This dilemma was, however, brief.

Being Charles Xavier was being constantly aware of what people thought of Charles Xavier. More often than not, how he could be useful to others: a trophy date, a convenient wallet, a useful student. He had learned not to let his reaction to thoughts show on his face. Raven and he had once made plans to run away to Hollywood and win Oscars. .

“I’m heading there myself,” Ganimard said, deciding on politeness. “Frankly, I could use someone with your expertise.” He was certain that he must keep Charles within sight.

Charles let himself look apologetic. “I feel quite bad about our last meeting. Not a morning person, I’m afraid, but I’m afraid radiation effects on mutations are not well-known. Radiation distabilizes DNA. Even low amounts. The teratological reports after the Hiroshima are devastating and there’s evidence that exposure to high levels of radiations also increase the risk of different diseases.”

-=-=

“d’Hergemont's student, Charles Xavier, ” Ganimard said, perhaps for ease of introduction. Charles didn’t correct him.

“English?” Dr. Essex queried.

“American, actually, just here for a project.” Charles said, and offered the name of a Cambridge professor, just in case. He couldn’t read Essex’s mind, but his own mind was so abuzz with different thoughts he couldn’t be certain if it was his own distraction.

Essex raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realise he’s moving from benchwork to theory. Are you a physicist or a biologist, Mr. Xavier? You look young enough to make one suspect of some sort of prodigious..potential.” He had oddly colored eyes, black even under the flourescent lights, and at a certain angle, appeared reddish, though Charles knew it to be impossible. There were no gene for black eyes.

“Tell me about the work on radiation and mutations,” Ganimard interrupted.

“As you know, the radiation institute is named after Pierre and Marie Curie, the Nobel laureates. The Curies went from studying the magnetism of different steels to radiation. The coupling of physics and biology is a recent development after the war but the advancement had been staggering. We know now that not only radiation an energy capable of providing nice glow in the dark dials but have effects on the human body we’re only just beginning to discover.”

“And do you talk about artificial or natural radiations?” Ganimard had no idea what natural radiations meant. “The sun, for example,” Charles explained, “is a natural source of radiation. Are you to find what are the effects of high or low dosages of ionizing radiation beyond deletorious mutations? Are you suggesting that radiation can be harnessed to cure diseases.”

“The sun is certainly an external source. But the trees, the birds, you, me,” Essex said, “everything alive is dying and decaying, the molecules inside us losing mass in the form of particles , emitting off a low dose of radiation. Especially,” -he tapped the side of his head and looking directly at Charles and for a moment Charles had the oddest sense of those black eyes being _hungry_ \- “from the mind. But,” Essex continued, smiling, “Mssrs. Xavier and Ganimard, controlling radiation and knowing what dosage and what form to use, that is the difficulty. We are very fortunate then, that the government is so interested in our work and provide the means to do so.”

“To cure diseases?” Ganimard asked. “Or to induce them? From what I understand,mutations are errors in our DNA and radiation will increase them.”

“Most cures are poisons and most poisons can be cures.”

Ganimard, frustrated and confused, began to evaluate his surrounding. Charles remained silent, listening to Essex, while learning about the defensibility of all the exits and entryways in the rooms as they toured the laboratories. Charles found it all fascinating, even if he had trouble deciphering the equations on the blackboard. He didn’t read Essex because he realised he didn’t want to. He needed to keep his attention on the inspector who might lead him to find Erik-

“Where do you keep the sources of radioactivity experiments? Who handled them.”

“In vaults. Some of them are dangerous and in fact,would not be handled by untrained personnel.”

“Are they valuable?”

“A gram of radium is about a hundred thousand francs. Of course, radium is not all we have.”

But Ganimard was satisfied. He had determined that Max’s interest was money. The men he killed had all been wealthy and influential. The security at a research institute was more lax than that of a bank. He spared another thought for Charles’ safety, which Charles appreciated but then he caught an incongruous line of thought about- a rock?

The thought, tinged with confusion and fear, led Charles to excuse himself. He followed it to an open office. The thought was disrupted by a phone call and gone, but on the table was an open file. It concerned an asteroid that had landed on France in the 18th century and subject to superstitions and old-wives’ tales. However, contemporary observations did suggest that it augmented growth of plants around it. There was a list of dates and locations, presumably where it had been transported and another list of file numbers

He became so engrossed in the document that when he stepped out again, he was surprised to see Ganimard glaring at him.

“I got lost,”Charles said, affecting innocence. Ganimard sighed. Essex’s face, however affable, made Charles break out in a cold sweat because he should read his mind, even to influence it, but there was something telling him, warning him, that he did not wish it, so he didn’t.

Charles and Ganimard parted at the train-station. He to go home and Charles to- somewhere, he supposed. Dinner sounded like a plan. The trip had not turned out to Ganimard’s liking and Charles was too disturbed by Essex to remember for Ganimard to find Erik for him. What was one mind in a million, or even a hundred, but it seemed as if Erik had hooked deep into Charles thoughts as if he was the telepath, drawing Charles towards him even if he himself had disappeared.

Charles became aware of two men following him as he made one of the shortcuts that Erik had shown him the first time they met. Away from the crowd, their minds, their thoughts- specifically, their thoughts about the young Englishman-- became louder than their footsteps. He stopped them with a thought, easily enough. but the third had hesitated, Charles with him, and was too slow, physically, to avoid the blow to the back of his head.

When he woke up, he was bound, gagged, blind-folded, and in a car. His entire body hurt. He had a headache. He screamed a little, more out of frustration and desire to hear his own voice than expecting help. The car slowed. The driver’s mind became more distinct, and so was another.

“Erik!” he thought with unexpected delight, but then his kidnappers grabbed him, hauling him unceremoniously out of the car before opening a door and pushing him inside. Charles tripped on the threshold and landed on his shoulder, a flare of pain burst down his arm. Ignoring the door slamming behind him, the minds of the men walking away, he scrambled upright and moved toward Erik.

Familiar fingers roamed his face, then pushed his blindfold down.

-=-=

**Author's Note:**

> Historical notes:
> 
> The story takes place in 1960 Paris where a year and a half later (October 1961), the police chief of the city, Maurice Papon, ordered the “Paris Massacre” where a number of Algerian-Muslims were killed during a peaceful, if illegal, demonstration for Algerian independence from France.
> 
> Papon was later decorated with Legion of Honour and ordered a second Paris Massacre to take place before finally being brought to trial by real Nazi hunters for crimes against humanity including deporting Jews for extermination during WW2 and torturing Algerians. The Nazis considered him an ally. Being well-connected collaborator, I assume Erik is hunting Shaw through him in this story...


End file.
